RE: [Webtest] Paramaterized test sequences - Brandon Moore - com.canoo.lists.webtest

4 messages in com.canoo.lists.webtestRE: [Webtest] Paramaterized test sequ...

From	Sent On	Attachments
Brandon Moore	17 Jul 2003 12:22
Bill Milbratz	17 Jul 2003 12:52
Dierk Koenig	18 Jul 2003 01:54
Brandon Moore	18 Jul 2003 12:17

Subject:	RE: [Webtest] Paramaterized test sequences
From:	Brandon Moore (bmo...@commcode.com)
Date:	07/18/2003 12:17:55 PM
List:	com.canoo.lists.webtest

Hi Mittie

I think naming a set of steps should work. Ant handles the id attribute, but steps might need to inherit from DataType, or at least ProjectComponent if we want to be able to define procedures outside of tasks. I don't know if there is any way to refer to named items in another buildfile, which we should be able to do if we are trying to modularize our tests.

I'm also worried about parameter passing. It seems that dynamic parameters are stored in a global dictionary. I think the parameter values would still be set after the call finished. I don't think a procedure could use its arguments after making a call to another procedure that used the same parameter names.

If steps could be written so tests could make an antcall to them, we could reuse a bunch of work ant already does. Unfortunately, I can't find any way for an ant task to learn if it is running because of an antcall, so I don't know how the steps could find the webtest context from the parent testSpec.

Brandon

-----Original Message----- From: webt...@lists.canoo.com [mailto:webt...@lists.canoo.com]On Behalf Of Brandon Moore Sent: Donnerstag, 17. Juli 2003 21:23 To: Canoo Mailing List (E-mail) Subject: [Webtest] Paramaterized test sequences

Is there any reasonable way to pull out a sequence of test steps that should depend on some parameters? For example, you might want to be able to say <procedure name="login"> <param name="username" value="tim" /> <param name="password" value="lutefisk" /> </procedure> The only way I know of to name a sequence of test steps is with XML entities, but they don't take parameters.

If you use ant properties you have to avoid name conflicts, because you can only set them once, and even then you need to wrap your targets with an antcall if you want to use the same sequence in two different tests with different parameters.

I suppose the easiest thing to do is use dynamic parameters but I would like to avoid writing a custom step (to set the parameters), and I don't really like the idea of controlling behavior with what amount to global variables.

If test steps could find their context across an antcall I would modularize my tests by pulling procedures out into targets that took arguments in ant properties. This would end the need to write a DTD, but it would require reworking the engine.